


pain, like time, comes regardless

by sketchbook henry (bessemerprocess)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Broken Team Dynamics, Child Abuse, Child Death, Criminal Minds Big Bang, Difficult childbirth, Domestic Violence, Episode: s03e09 Penelope, Episode: s03e20-21 Lo-Fi & Mayhem, Episode: s04e25 To Hell…, F/M, Gen, Home Renovation, Major Character Injury, Murder, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04, Sexual Assault, Suicide, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Vigilantism, We All Fall Apart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-12 22:58:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14737394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/sketchbook%20henry
Summary: Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation.





	pain, like time, comes regardless

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be my Criminal Minds Big Bang back in 2013 maybe? It's got a complete plot, though all the foreshadowing and parallelism didn't get add in and the end is a bit thin. Still, it's completely readable. In fact, you maybe have read chunks of it that I excised and re-purposed in other fics (in fact, I think all of Pomegranate Seeds is contained in here in its nascent form.

"Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation." - Lois McMaster Bujold

 

Gideon finds Elle in a podunk town in Arizona, playing local PI. He's broken, she's broken, but together they can almost pretend at a whole person. She gets him a gun. It's not his, probably not legal, and it still feels wrong. He's never needed a gun before, why should he need one now?

Elle insists. This is her game, her rules. She is in charge now, so Gideon carries the gun. That doesn't mean he has to use it. Elle mostly takes cases that seem hopeless. That and ones that will make her a quick buck. They're close enough to Mexico to get the cross border bail jumpers.

Gideon is pretty sure Elle has a quick trigger finger when it comes to some of those bail jumpers. Rapists and child murders. He looks the other way. He's changed too.

He needs her to be in charge, he's not sure he's ready to be in charge of himself yet. When he's in charge, people die. 

"There are no rules out here, Gideon. Just your code and your gut. You do what's right, and if you don't, someone hunts you down." He used to be the hunter. Now, now he feels like he should be the hunted.

Elle introduces him to the local lawyer once she's sure he's staying. Danny Arroyo is a local boy with a law degree from big city Texas. Trilingual, honors up and down the board, his daddy holds down the local bar and his mama the Catholic Church. Everyone in town knows the Arroyos.

No one knows Gideon here. Elle introduces him like he's her father, her uncle, family, so that's how the locals all treat him. If he stays here long enough, Danny Arroyo is going to show up and ask his permission for something that's not his to give.

It's an odd feeling. Like he's starting to come back to earth after being untethered for so long.

[more Gideon's thoughts on Elle that at the same time showcase Gideon's brokenness]

Elle seems happy. It's strange, he's always thought of her as going unwillingly into exile. A soldier far from her beloved homeland. Back then, the BAU had been the center of his universe and therefore the center of the actual universe.

These days the universe has no center, no solid place for Gideon to call home.

His self imposed exile has not brought him that kind of healing, not yet, maybe not ever, but at least he's not adding new corpses to his nightmares anymore.

***

Morgan paces the waiting room, hoping for good news. They're at [hospital B], since [hospital A] has a gaping hole in the front of it's ER. The terrorists had tried to ram their stolen, explosive laden ambulance into the hospital. They'd been stopped by the quick thinking of the Secret Service agents on sight, but had still managed to set off the explosives, killing ten and injuring more.

Agent Joyner died on the scene, and when they pulled Hotch out, Morgan had thought he was gone too. He's in surgery now, and no one will tell them anything. Morgan paces.

Prentiss and JJ sit next to each other, whispering quietly. Reid is across from them, awkwardly moving his cup of coffee from hand to hand. Rossi is back at the field office, trying to straighten out this mess. The brass wants Morgan to step into Joyner's shoes. Morgan wants Hotch to wake up. Everyone wants something.

***

The first time Aaron Hotchner wakes up he's surrounded by doctors. Which makes sense because his body is screaming in pain. They knock him back out before he can even ask about his team.

The second time around, Garcia is asleep in a chair next to his bed and he only sort of feels like dying. Garcia awakes when he moves, and her smile is like the sun bursting forth through clouds.

"Sir, you're awake!" she says.

[expand the New York scenario: Hotch is unconscious for much longer, Joyner dies before he wakes up, unsubs ram ambulance through secret service and blow up front of the hospital, Morgan sucks at being in charge.]

[New York has taken a hard toll on their team. Hotch is still out, recovering from six broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a fractured skull. Joyner, who had been in the same SUV, hadn’t made it. The brass gets what it wants. Morgan stays in New York and takes over Joyner's job. He agrees to it as a temporary assignment, but he has a feeling it'll be more permanent than he likes.]

***

The situation doesn’t make anyone happy. Morgan is chafing at his new desk job. He calls Garcia at least once a day and if his tone isn’t whiny, it isn’t enthusiastic either. JJ is out on maternity leave. Will has convinced her to go to Pennsylvania for the month before the baby's due date so that her mother can hover. She gives in since the BAU is officially on medical leave, anyway.

The missing agents bring the team down to three plus Garcia and the bullpen feels empty.

Strauss sends them up temporary help: Jordan Todd and Tomas Ramirez are already moved in when they come back.

Prentiss and Reid suspend all rules regarding inter-team profiling for the duration. In fact, they’re profiling each other too, giving them an air of telepathy or at the very least a spooky synchronicity. Even Garcia has to admit that it’s creepy.

[set up more R and P profiling each other]

It doesn’t help with integration; in fact it reinforces all those stereotypes about profilers and psychic powers. Garcia considered telling them to cut it out, but it seems to be a coping method and they never turn it on her.

They do it to Ramirez all the time though, which is a little harsh. The man didn’t come in expecting to be viewed as temporary replacement at best and crooked interloper at worst. Prentice is suspicious of Strauss though and the lack of Hotch, Morgan, and JJ throws the team into a spiral in which good manners have been lost. So Reid finishes Prentiss’ sentences and Prentiss hands Reid things without him asking. They both answer Ramirez's questions before he asks, point out his deepest flaws, and otherwise ignore him. Todd, they just ignore completely. 

Todd and Ramirez call them the wonder twins behind their backs. Rossi doesn’t seem to care, or maybe he doesn’t know how to deal with such broken team dynamics, Garcia isn’t sure, but either way there’s little chance of them turning into a well heeled team without a minor miracle. 

***

[Rossi on leadership and trying to step into Hotch's shoes and how he is good at one on one but not on making a team.]

[Reid blows up, goes to whine at Garcia and goes home.]

***

 

Prentiss arrives at the door of the bunker with a chair dragged behind her in one hand and two cartons of General Tso's chicken in the other. Garcia ushers her in and closes the door behind her.

"Sustenance, excellent!" Gracia hands Prentiss a pair of chopsticks produced from out of nowhere.

Once they are settled in and eating, Garcia asks, "How is he doing?"

"Reid? He's fine or as close to fine as we get." Prentiss shovels more chicken in her mouth.

"And you?" Garcia asks with a pointed eyebrow.

"I've had better days," replies Prentiss. "The food is helping," she adds with a smile.

"It usually does. And," says Garcia spinning around in her chair, grabbing a DVD case off her shelf and making it do a little dance, "I've got Dr. Horrible, if you're up for it."

Prentiss leans back with a smile, "Sounds good."

Garcia pops in the DVD and they sit there together in the dim light of the bunker, enjoying one of the few breaks they were going to get that week.

“It’s too quiet here without Morgan,” Prentiss says.

“He calls, but it’s not the same,” Garcia agrees.

***

Rossi doesn't drink in public if he can help it. Sometimes, he'll have a beer with the team, but no more than one.

Rossi is a rampant individualist, or at least, that's what Jason Gideon used to say. They had their issues (ranging from the proper way to hold a gun to the superiority of red m&ms to the causes of psychopathy in narcissistic children).

Back in the day, the BAU had been more like the wild, wild west than the efficient and organized bureaucracy it is today. Rossi misses being the sheriff some days.

***

JJ texts Emily her growing frustration with the situation.

[the balance between all encompassing work and the rest of the world that JJ is failing at]

***

Reid gets the call on a Thursday and drags Prentiss out to see the house that Saturday. "It was my grandmother's. I don't know why it didn't go to my father. The lawyer said he wasn't dead. Wouldn't release his address, though."

"Garcia?" Prentiss asks, knowing he'll understand. She doesn't get an answer.

[more on Reid's dad]

The house might as well of come straight out of a gothic novel. Worn and gray and oh so forbidding; Emily couldn’t help but wonder how many people had died in it.

“My grandfather and great-grandmother did,” Reid says. It’s not mind reading per say and Prentiss has gotten used to the near telepathic conversation style. It's useful until one of them missteps and then it's like dancing in a minefield.

"My dad grew up here, and his dad and I think my great grandmother did too. According to the lawyer, it used to be surrounded by farmland, but there's only a few acres left now that haven't been sold off to developers. Some distant ancestor, a Cpt. Robert Talallen, was given the land in thanks for his service in the War of 1812."

"What are you going to do with it?" Prentiss asks.

"Fixed it up and sell it or rent it out, I guess. I don't really need a house in Ohio. Maybe Morgan would fly down and help me out?"

"I'll help," Prentiss says. "And Morgan wouldn't miss this for the world."

"I know, and he at least knows how to use a hammer," says Reid, sticking his tongue out at Prentiss.

"Watch it there buddy, or your new haunted mansion will be redone in florals, pastel florals. And don't forget, I was there when you put that last bookshelf together."

"Ack!" squawks Reid, batting at Prentiss. "Not florals!"

"But seriously," Prentiss says with a grin, leaning into Reid. "I know a guy who does historical renovation and preservation type work. He'll probably be able to track down the original deed and file any paperwork you need too."

***

Reid's never been to this house before, not in all the time he remembers. He wonders what his father's relationship with his father was like. If they were just repeating a pattern of betrayal and abandonment or if this is a new step.

He never met any of his grandparents. His mother's family was all dead before he was born, and his father never brought up the subject.

He wishes Gideon were here to see this. He would have loved the house.

***

Gideon considers packing up and going back to the BAU the first time he watches Elle decapitate a snake with a shovel. Really though, she's the only one of his kids who wants anything to do with him. He's abandoned all the rest. Elle, she left first, so Gideon puts up with the snakes and the dust and the curious locals. He owes her, he owes them.

He's never been a big fan of the American southwest, but you have to face your demons or you end up one yourself, so he's here. He still expects to see dead bodies every time the red dust fills his nose.

Gideon is starting to get that itch, the one that'll eventually send him back out into the field. He's not going to find any answers in Elle's guest room.

Elle is out on a call. Bank robber this time, someone the cops want back and bad. Gideon is still a little unclear how the man made it out on bail, but he did and now Elle is after him. Maybe next time he'll join her.

[more set up on Elle, the PI/bounty hunter, some Gideon hyperventilating]

***

Hotch hates being in pain, he hates being out of commission, and most of all, he hates being out of the loop. Medical leave is just about what he imagines hell would be like.

He's wrangled some time with Jack, later, when he's up to standing for prolonged periods of time and his obvious wounds have healed. He doesn't want to scare his son. Until then, he has reruns and microwave meals and constant worry.

He calls Garcia to distract himself and to check up on the team. She's always the best source of information.

[Hotch on Hotch and the team]

If Haley hadn't already walked out of his life, she'd be pushing for a medical retirement ight now.

***

Everyone misses Morgan. Garcia misses him the most.

"Hey, baby girl," Morgan says. Usually his voice would be enough to cheer her up, but it's not working today. 

[expand, show Morgan having a hard time in NY]

Morgan usually calls to tell her his new tech is nowhere near her level, that he misses movie night, and that being forced to drive in New York city is going to turn him into a spree killer. Tonight, morgan doesn't want to talk about any of those things.

***

Spencer Reid is often confused by the fetishization of normality. Maybe it's because he's not normal. He's never been normal. On television, superheros just want to give up their powers and lead normal lives. Political pundits are obsessed with average American. It always confuses him a bit, he never wants to be average. He's happy to be the odd one out.

He does better with a buddy: someone to drag him out and make him do things. He’s okay by himself, but that’s survival mode. He can feed himself, do his laundry, pay the bills, but he doesn’t leave his comfort zones if he doesn’t have to.

First, it was Gideon who made him leave his apartment. Gideon’s taste in culture is much like his mother’s, so it never felt too odd. Operas, museums, lectures.

The team does much the same thing. They teach him about the things normal people learn growing up. Spencer doesn’t think he really missed out on too much learning them later on in life. He does think it makes him a better profiler to know them. Morgan explains the mystery of the microbrew to him, JJ teaches him about sports, Garcia introduces him to the wide world of cable television and pull lists, and Hotch teaches him how to drive.

Reid hadn't thought he would be that bad a driver, but Hotch had spent the next month promising to make Haley teach Jack to drive everytime Reid hit the brakes too hard. Once was enough.

After Gideon, after New York, it’s just him and Prentiss. Garcia retreats into her bunker: connected more to Morgan than to the rest of DC. They manage to drag her out every once in a while: TV marathons and trivia night, but nothing like before. Reid misses the camaraderie, the sense of family.

Reid thinks he might be clinging a bit, but Prentiss never seems to mind. She just slowly works her way into his life, taking over. Prentiss introduces him to indie music and young adult novels. She knows how to cook even less than he does, but she knows all the best places to eat in DC and has no problem when he insists on trying them in alphabetical order.

She also has the biggest DVD collection of anyone he’s ever met and has no problem expanding it on a lark. He mentions that he’s interested in seeing Get Smart one day and she has it the next. They profile television characters and throw popcorn and pretend not to worry.

Hotch isn't returning anyone's calls this week, not even Rossi's. They watch a lot of DVDs.

 

Prentiss has had access to her trust fund since she turned twenty-one and a good portion of her father’s estate since she turned twenty-five. What she doesn’t donate to NAMI or Doctors Without Borders, she spends on DVDs and books.

“What’s the point of having all that money if you can’t spend a little of it on something fun?” she asks him one night after he suggests that he pay for dinner.

“I had a brother once, but not anymore,” she says. “And now, I don’t even have a team. Let me feed you.”

Reid knows feeding behavior is one of the ways people show affection, so he shuts up and lets her feed them. He doesn't know what else to do.

***

Gideon has a biological son, but he abandoned him long before he left his team.

Maybe blood is thicker than water: he remembers the color of her's spread across her apartment floor the doctor's hands stained with it.

But Steven has been out of his reach longer even than Reid: the sharp edges of betrayal are washed smooth by the river of time.

[Gideon on Steven, Gideon on Elle]

***

Danny Arroyo doesn't even bother knocking. "Elle?" he calls, stepping inside. Elle has had a two year head start on fitting in here, on building a new life. Gideon has no right to complain that she lets strange men wander into their house without knocking, but that doesn't mean he particularly likes it.

Arroyo is tall and sun browned, with cowboy boots and a suit jacket. He's not carrying. Gideon can't help but check.

It's odd to watch the courtship up close. Back at the BAU he'd considered work life and perhaps wrongly applied the same mindset to his agents. Here, living in Elle's spare room, he's watching her life up close and he can't help but profile.

[Elle has ethics, not rules. Slightly twisted ethics, but still. Arroyo and Elle clash over ethics vs. law]

***

[Garcia thinks of the BAU as home]

Garcia loves her job. Well okay, she loves the parts of her job where people weren't being killed in increasing brutal and disgusting ways. She misses Morgan, misses Hotch, miss the team that was. These days nothing is clicking. There are no more of those amazing life saving leaps of logic from the old days. She feel partially to blame. Half her brain is in New York with Morgan.

Rossi hasn't accepted a field case yet. Everyone is stuck catching up on paperwork and phone calls. Garcia wonders if Rossi is more worried about losing another teammate or taking such a nonfunctional group of people into the field. Either way, she's spent most of her time doing scut work and favors for Morgan no one else knows about.

[Garcia observing the team and Rossi, Garcia on her family, figure out brother's names.]

Garcia knows that Rossi is an enabler. He just can't help it sometimes. Without Hotch as the strong center, Rossi is drowning, trying to patch all the leaks in the sinking ship.

***

Garcia has four half brothers, all named things just as off the beaten track as Penelope. Her father was a hippie first and foremost.

Percy, Percival Eliazar Garcia, is getting married in a month. It's the first she's heard from him since their father died.

***

JJ used to go out and shoot for fun. Before Jacob Colby Baylor, before the dogs: JJ held the girls junior pistol championship for three straight years.

These days, every time she looks at her gun, she sees its utility, it’s power to destroy and to save. She doesn't think shooting targets will ever become fun again. She even makes her mom pack up all her trophies. She can cover from the team when they’re not looking, but in her mother’s house she feels safe enough to make the reminders go away. The lack of the trophies makes her old room look sparse, but that’s better than being reminded of what’s she’s done and the things she’s taken away from herself every time she goes home.

Being away from the team is lonely. She has Will and her mom, but sometimes it feels like they don't have anything to talk about anymore. After New York, Will is nervous and jittery. She knows he wants her to quit, to settle down with him somewhere safe. She wants to tell him nowhere is safe. Women die everywhere, children do too. Her mother just wants to buy tiny, lacy shoes and bonnets. There is very little darkness in Mrs. Jareau's world. 

Between the two of them, Will and her mom fill the house with boxes of stuff for the baby. Every safe device known to man, from rubber duckies that tell you if the bath water is scalding to tracking devices that attach to your babies shoes. 

JJ wants her baby to be safe too. She's not a bad mother, she never wants to see her baby hurt or dead, but she knows things happens, and the best way to keep her baby safe isn't things, but going back to work and stopping those that would harm them.

She sighs and reminds herself it's just another few weeks.

***

[Elle bringing in the bank robber, Elle killing someone who needs killing]

Elle works better outside the law. She dresses like SWAT, all black cargoes and Kevlar vests, and shoots like a machine. Even the local sheriff defers to her on occasion. 

Nate Wyatt rules the local cop shop. Just pushing forty, with a family tree of cops all the way back. He's a good one too. Gideon even likes him, and Nate, well, he's not too upset with the influx of ex-FBI either.

Sometimes he comes by the house and Gideon makes tea and they talk. Nate reminds him of Hotch, not so much in the particulars but in the broad strokes and strong principles.

Nate's latest case is a string of bank robberies, and the evidence is now spread across the kitchen table. It's odd how easily Gideon slips into his old role.

[Elle builds profiles for Nate]  
***

“Come on,” says Prentiss, herding Reid into her car. It's four thirty on a Friday and Rossi has kicked them all out of the building. “You need a haircut.”

“What?” asks Reid. He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, confused.

“A haircut? That thing that, as far as I can tell, Gideon used to make you do,” says Prentiss slowly.

“Oh,” Reid replies. “Gideon thought a good haircut helped make the agent. It never really bothered me, one way or the other.”

"Well this is one Gideon related task I don't mind taking over. Haircut, now!" Prentiss jokes and pushes him into the passenger seat.

Normally, Gideon is not a subject to be joked about, but for a moment the mines are deactivated and they dance right through without a miss step.

The haircut is shorter than Reid normally likes it, but Emily pronounces it good. It's even shorter than Gideon usually had them cut it, and it makes his neck feel naked.

"Chinese and Leverage," Prentiss suggests, and Reid accepts it as the peace offer it is.

***

Todd briefs them on a case three weeks into Hotch’s enforced recovery. Reid is fidgeting with a paperclip as Rossi paces behind the chairs. Hotch's usual seat is empty, a grating presence.

“Four women were found dead in rural Illinois. All show signs of prolonged captivity before their deaths. The bodies were dumped together, but the time of deaths span a month and a half. Each woman was reported missing. Anna-Elizabeth Jones was the first, six months ago. Taylor Goodman, who is the local sheriff’s youngest daughter, was the last six days ago.”

Jordan continues, “Three other local women have been reported missing in the county in the last year and haven't been found.” Their faces appear on the screen door with a click of a button.

"Liz McKinley, Tara Benton, and Eleanor Pace."

***

The plane ride is tense. Hotch and Morgan's absence seem to be magnified 3,000 feet in the air. Reid can tell it's grating on Prentiss' nerves. She has a Vonnegut book, one she's already read a hundred times. She's turning pages randomly, eyes flickering over the text, and he can tell she's not actually reading. He leans slightly into her personal space. Not enough to touch her, just enough to let her know he's there.

She leans back towards him and he wonders when it had become them against the world. 

[expand the Reid and Prentiss show]

***

"I've got a case," Elle says, tossing the folder on the table in front of Gideon. 

She still calls them cases, uses all the terminology of the BAU and her old life.

"Missing kid. Eric Miller," she says.

Eric Miller's been missing for three days. Nate and Danny have both checked and handed over everything they've got, just in case Eric isn't already dead. Not much of a chance of that, even with the locals and the FBI all over it. 

"Eight year old male, dark brown hair, brown eyes, good grades. Lives with his mother and step father," Gideon reads from the file. "Missing since after school on Tuesday."

[more foreshadowing, more clues, expand]

***

They land in Illinois and take a black bureau SUV out to the dump site. 

A deputy hands over a packet of copied evidence. "The notes were left on top of each body."

“He wants us to come after him. He’s had his fun with his victims, and now it’s time to play with us,” says Rossi, looking at the site.

Prentiss bites her tongue. Sometimes Rossi’s way of stating the obvious gets on her nerves, which, she'd be the first to admit, have been a little bit frayed as of late.

"He's organized, methodical, paranoid. Seems normal, even neighborly, maybe a little too polite," Rossi says squinting into the sun.

He's right, mostly. The unsub is leaving clues, taunting them, and she has a bad feeling about this.

Rossi is trying to mold them into a cohesive unit, but he's a lone wolf and too many things are broken. 

[Rossi can put individuals back together, but can't make individuals into a team.]

***

The Sheriff is a complete wreck. His only daughter is dead, and no one at the station can get him to leave. Mike Goodman is a divorcee, in his late fifties, and balding. His life is crumbling around him and the only thing he has any control over is his job, so he stays.

All of this is obvious to the team before the first hand shake. Goodman's deputy hovers at his right, like he's going to have to jump between a bullet and his boss at any moment.

"Evan Peterson," the deputy introduces himself. The Sheriff doesn't even attempt to shake hands, just stares at them.

[do unsub exposition]

The upside of unsub's who leave clues: none of them are as smart as Reid.

"In his note, the unsub quotes ---. I think we're looking for an abandoned or foreclosed house."

***

Reid is right. Jeremiah Hawke is keeping his victims in a foreclosed house of the highway. They find out the unsub’s lair is booby trapped the hard way: face first. They make it through the front door. Prentiss isn't sure if without the screaming they’d have been more careful, but with it they’re not at all. Rossi is the first up the stairs and his foot goes through the floorboard of the third step. The snap is sickening, but Kaylee Freeman is still screaming so they let the SWAT guys carry Rossi out of the house.

Reid goes around the corner of the upstairs hallway first and gets clipped by a burst of flame. SWAT has got him down and extinguished and Prentiss leads the rest of them on. The screaming is louder now. She kicks in the first bedroom door, and quickly moves out of the doorway, just in case the unsub’s got something set up here too.

Nothing happens, and so when she enters the room gun drawn, she isn’t expecting the gun shot. A gunshot. After all the elaborate trickery. The unsub clips her upper arm and is dead by her hand before he has time to pull the trigger again.

Kaylee lives. Prentiss finds out later that Ramirez almost got himself dead trying to clear the kitchen, getting 50,000 volts of electricity for his troubles. SWAT cleared the rest of the house, two more bodies in the basement and a whole inventory of booby traps.

***

Reid's sure they've made a spectacular entrance at the local ER. Four FBI agents, three SWAT guys, one victim and wailing sirens everywhere. This won't be his first ER entry on a gurney, but it might be the flashiest. He's sure his face looks bad, and the haircut Prentiss made him get is probably destroyed. He saw Rossi as they rolled him out of the ambulance, but he can't see Prentiss.

"Emily!" he yells, and boy does it make his face hurt. It doesn't matter, he yells again.

"I'm fine," he hears her yell back. He still can't see her, but he relaxes and lets the doctors do their work. All present and accounted for. Usually that's Hotch's job and Reid feels weird stepping into that spot.

***

Hotch breaks land speed records getting to the hospital. It still takes him ten hours. He's not technically cleared to drive, but he's supposed to be at his next check up and nothing is going to keep him from his team, even his own damned ego.

Prentiss is bandaged and sitting next to Reid's bed when Hotch finally makes it past the nurses and the security line up.

"He's still sedated," says Prentiss, as Hotch loiters in the doorway. "It's not as bad as it looks. There's a few second degree burns, but he should be back on duty in a week or two. They just knocked him out to abrade the wounds."

"And you?"

"Bullet didn't hit anything important. Really just a graze," Prentiss says.

Hotch give her a look that says it all.

He knows there's nothing he could've done to stop this, but the team is his responsibility, even in Dave's hands. He hates that he wasn't here to stop this.

[Hotch getting mad, Hotch having a harder time than usual keeping a lid on his temper, how much Hotch hates seeing the kids get hurt.]

***

Gideon is living in Elle's spare room, which means she has to look across the kitchen table at him every morning. It's not that he's so bad to share a table with, not really. It's all the ghosts and little memories that come with him. On the plus side, Gideon really does like to cook and he's good at it. Breakfast has gone from cornflakes in iffy milk to scrambled eggs and grapefruit halves.

Elle keeps watch over him. He hasn't told her the whole story, most of what she knows is on her own research, but she can tell just by looking at him that he's in need. Gideon was always quiet, contemplative, but it's almost as if he's lost in his own head some days. Flying on autopilot while he watches his nightmares flash before his eyes. She wonders if this is what he was like after Boston.

[Elle watching Gideon try to heal himself]

Watching Gideon reassemble himself is sort of like watching someone put together a jigsaw puzzle of an Escher drawing.

***

Reid asks Garcia to look into his father when she has time. The house too.

He's never really thought about all the things he doesn't know about his father, about himself. Grandparents and a house and a family that's been serving this country just like him since before it was a country. He wonders why no one ever thought to tell him these thing.

[Garcia reports on Reid’s dad/family]

"He's still in Las Vegas?" Reid asks. "He was there the whole time?"

Garcia nods.

[Reid mini meltdown]

***

The mood in the bullpen is tense. Rossi is still in a wheelchair, but Prentiss and Reid are healed enough for active duty. Ramirez has decided not to come back, apparently organized crime is a safer bet. Those guys just want to shoot you.

Hotch still has another month before he can return to duty, active or not. It doesn't keep him from sneaking into the bullpen. Twice.

[funny bits about Hotch being sneaky and puppy dog eyed]

***

Garcia wants to scream. She doesn't, she doesn't even complain to Morgan, because she knows it will only make him more unhappy. Rossi doesn't deal with being in pain well, and Hotch is even worse at being out of the loop. She came in yesterday to find Hotch hiding out in her bunker.

"Garcia," he'd said with a smile. "Just doing some catching up."

She can't imagine how crazy he's going watching his team self destruct while he's not here to fix it. He looks like he needs someone to fix him. She's not sure she's the person for the job, but she can make sure he's eating something besides take out, so she does.

***

When Morgan feels self destructive, he picks up a different girl every night. New York is full of women, none of whom he wants to commit to, most of whom don't mind at all.

[Morgan on New York and missing his team]

***  
Emily Prentiss is not an only child. For the first four years of her life she had an older brother, James William Prentiss III. A perfect son: the apple of their father's eye. He’d been almost eight when he was diagnosed and hung on an entire year before the cancer took him.

After that, her mother had retreated into her job, only coming out to make sure her picture perfect family stayed that way.

Her father had been different too, but instead of pulling away he’d clung to her, his now only child. Emily has fond memories of those years, when she was the center of her father’s world for weeks at a time. After James’ death, he hadn’t gone back to work. There was no real reason for either of her parents to work, except to pass the time. Not that her father's unemployment hadn't been a topic of heated debate in the Prentiss household when the adults thought little ears weren't listening.

They settled into a pattern: a month of candy and ice cream and carousel rides, then a month where her father wouldn’t leave his room, crying for James, for himself. Those months Emily would busy herself with school work and wait him out until he back out to play with her again.

No one ever said the words depression or mental illness. Emily’s mother made sure of that. Mr. Prentiss was slightly odd, an eccentric maybe, but never ever crazy.

Emily Prentiss has always been a dutiful daughter. She has obeyed, even when obeying hurt. She watched her father die and said nothing when her mother covered it up

“My father hung himself when I was twelve. The death certificate says he had a heart attack. I’ve never figured out how my mother managed that one,” says Prentiss to Reid. "We went to The UAE right after that."

“They gave me painkillers, at the hospital.” For anyone else this would be a non sequitur, for Reid its information of equal value. "For the burns."

She knows Reid is still going to meetings, she's picked him up from a few. Prentiss nods, and they sit there together in the silence for a moment. Drugs aren't usually something they talk about.

***

Emily goes from The United Arab Emirates to Italy without even a layover in the United States to catch her breath. She turns fourteen on the plane, but her mother doesn't say anything.

Rome is almost terrifying in it's possibilities after confinement of the desert. It's possible she takes it a little too far. First the sex and then the drugs. 

Another two years and they're moving on again. Back home this time. Her mother is getting married again. Emily sneaks out and dies her hair in retaliation. 

She gets clean on her own. It's easier to do here where she doesn't know anyone and sometimes even forgets how to speak the language. She keeps tripping into Italian when she thinks of the cocaine.

She takes up smoking to calm the shakes and uses the dyed hair and new found attitude as her own personal barrier. She doesn't make friends this time, she doesn't want to fit in. Her mother never notices.

She stays clean because she's long since figured out that nothing short of an overdose will get her mother's attention and she's not ready to die, not even to spite her mother.

“My mother wanted the best for her children,” says Prentiss. “She never meant anything particularly harmful. She gave me everything I could have wanted except for affection.”

"Affection, my mother had, but she couldn't protect me from the world," Reid replies.

Prentiss wasn't there to meet Reid's mother, but she's heard stories from Morgan and Garcia.  
***

Ex-law enforcement has a lot of cache around these parts. Elle knows the cops, knows the bounty hunters, knows the gangsters and the gun runners. They all know her too. Well enough that she can wander into The Shack, the most infamous dive bar in town, and not a single soul will touch her.

Sociology isn't Gideon's first discipline, but he's come to be fascinated by this community and Elle's place in it.

[Gideon on Elle, Gideon pontificating]

She's following a lead, a bad lead, but the only one they've got.

The lead is a bust, at least as far as Eric Miller is concerned. Peter Sharpe likes his victims to be girls, not boys. Elle still puts him behind bars with bruises on his face.

They're no closer to catching Eric Miller's killer and Gideon is getting frustrated. He wishes he could call up Garcia and have all his questions answered.

***

Brandon Archer replaces Ramirez and neither Prentiss nor Reid likes him any better. Neither of the men are Morgan and that’s the standard they’d have to meet to be accepted.

You have to be broken in certain ways to be a profiler. Not to do the job; Prentiss is sure lots of people could get the education and do the job, but to stick with the job and flourish. Brandon Archer is not broken.

Brandon Archer is the blue eyed, fair haired, son of a local politician. He was a quarterback, and if Prentiss is guessing right, Prom King. He's a rising star in the Bureau, though he must have pissed off someone fierce to get stuck with them.

Reid has taking to snapping at people as his main form of communication and all Prentiss can do is roll her eyes. She knows better than most that when Reid is upset, out of sorts, he can get mean. Withdrawal is worse. He’s not the little kid everyone takes him for, especially Archer. He doesn’t turn his anger at her, and for that she’s grateful: once is enough.

Prentiss tries to see it from Archer's point of view, brought in to replace a replacement who hadn't even lasted two whole months in the unit. She knows she sides with Reid, and along with Garcia they often form an inner clique, an impenetrable barrier. The old guard. 

She never imagined when she first joined the BAU that she would one day consider herself part of the old guard.

Without a team leader, they're benched. Rossi still isn't at his best, leg still in one of those inflatable casts, and no one wants to take over when Hotch will be back so soon. No field time, just paperwork and analysis. It's important work she knows, and sending them out into the field would be a disaster at this point, but it doesn't stop her from wanting to be out there. Out of the stifling, tension filled office, out stopping evil, out helping people.

Archer treats Reid like he's the geek you steal your homework from and shove in a locker. Prentiss doesn't know why, but she and Reid just bring out Archer's mean streak.

***

They get swamped and Strauss finally decides to send the two of them out without Hotch or Rossi.

"Just in an advisory capacity," she cautions.

Reid and Prentiss nod slowly. "Yes, ma'am."

***

Emily had been a teenaged girl in The UAE. Four years of head covering and being chaperoned every where she went. Four years of listening to imams talk about submission and modesty. Four too many years. Rev. Talbot's congregation has taken the subjugation of women to a level even the imams might object to. The women sit in the back of the congregation, covered from head to toe in cape dresses and veils, hauling an endless stream of babies about. They are silent except to hush their young daughters. Emily wants to scream, to shout, to do anything, but that's not what the FBI pays her for.

The service is long, almost three hours. It feels foreign to Prentiss' Episcopal childhood. The men wear suits and sit next to their adolescent sons. They sing, the women do not.

The case is easy to solve. The Reverend himself is their unsub.

They tell the Sheriff where to dig and his men find all four bodies.

Emily Prentiss looks at crime scene photos and wonders what the point of the fourteenth amendment is if men still treat women like disposable property. She’s seen too many dead women, too many molested girls. Reid swears you can get PTSD from prolonged secondary exposure to trauma, but Prentiss doesn’t think that’s her problem. It’s just getting hard to be outraged anymore.

In college it had been easy. Easy to be angry before she saw the bodies, day in, day out.

She’d seen violence against women before, of course. She’s not sure where you’d have to grow up not to see it, maybe Mars. Emily Prentiss had grown up in places where men hurt women: Saudi Arabia, Romania, the United States. Now it’s like a fact of life: men kill women.

In college though, she’d seen the recovery, known girls who called themselves survivors. At the BAU Emily rarely sees survivors, but she sees dead women every day. How can you get mad about a fact of life? Men kill women. Reid would say something about evolutionary biology, and Morgan would say that men can be victims, can be survivors too. Hotch wouldn’t say anything, because his actions speak for him, and JJ would empathize if they talked about things like this.

Emily isn’t sure when she lost her righteous anger, which dead girl, which unsub, maybe it was after Hankle. Reverend Christopher Talbot reignites it. Maybe it was middle school in The UAE that makes her sensitive to Talbot’s words; maybe it’s just having grown up in this world.

Emily knows that whether or not God exists, his plan wasn’t for men to kill women. If He truly did want such things, he was no god of Emily’s. Genesis tells the creation of humankind two ways. In the first, man and woman are created together, co-equal, and are given dominion over the world, in the second, man is created first, names the animals, and then woman is made from him, subordinated. Men like Talbot always prefer the second chapter of Genesis to the first. They revel in Titus 2 and 1 Timothy 2. In Adam as the King of creation with dominion over all the animals: the lions, the doves, the woman.

She sees how men like Talbot treat their dominion: a trail of dead bodies for her to follow. Talbot buried four young women behind his church, one of whom was his own daughter. The only mark of their passing: the stained soil. No one suspected him; none of the families reported the women missing. Better that the temptresses, the jezebels were gone. The BAU only gets the case because the locals don’t want to touch it. The only reason they take it is because these women aren’t going to get justice any other way and one very insistent state senator.

God isn’t usually a pressing matter in Emily’s life. She was raised Episcopal, but that was politics, not religion. Church was where you went to seem like a good person. It was a social necessity. She only calls on God when she needs a good expletive or the situation seems hopeless. She’s not counting on him to do anything, she just needs something to say, to scream. If God exists he is the God of “God helps those who help themselves.”

Emily works with men who have been victims. Some things she’d figured out, some she’d been told by Garcia once she’d trusted Emily enough to know she’d use the information for good. Emily doesn’t need to be a victim to be a good profiler; she’s lived her entire life as a woman in this world. Even now that she walks around armed, she still walks to her car at night with her keys in her hand. She locks all her doors and sleeps with her piece in easy reach. Dead bodies may desensitize you, but they don’t erase years of anxiety.

The Reverend fights the SWAT team when they bring him in. He screams that God has ordained his actions and that no earthly body may judge him. 

They ignore him. Earthly justice will put him in prison until after his corpse rots in its grave.

"I hate the religious ones," says Reid, later in the airplane.

Emily squeezes his hand. "I know."

They sit there together, watching the sun dip below the horizon as the plane flies on.

***

Gideon has forgotten his gun again. He considers it a pretty worthless tool for most any job, but Elle insists he carry and he is here on her forbearance so he tries to remember it.

They're in a park. The only one around with real trees, a false oasis. It would be nice, but Eric Miller is hanging from a branch, his tiny body swaying in the desert breeze.

Gideon can't take his eyes of the boy's tiny blue shoes. He bought Steven shoes like that once. A lifetime ago.

He snaps out of it when Eric's mother comes running up, screaming for her baby boy.

[Gideon on cognitive dissonance and the feeling of not being able to rely on the authority of the FBI anymore.]

Gideon wants to fall back on the authority of the FBI, but he can't do that anymore. Nate is here to flash his badge and give the condolences Gideon can't.

They stay there, Elle and Gideon and Nate, until the CSU clears out and everything is clean. Like nothing bad ever happened here.

***

Rossi's back at the BAU hobbling along on crutches on Monday. Strauss sends Prentiss and Reid out again on Wednesday. It's a child services call, not something they'd normally do, but the team is still mostly catching up on ten years of paperwork, so anything in the field makes Prentiss happy.

"Another religious group?" asks Reid, wearily, after he reads the file.

Prentiss nods. "Just a quick one."

Ten hours later, Prentiss and Reid are hostages and she wonders if her words jinxed them.

***

Prentiss grabs Reid and drags him out of the building just as the girl hits the button to blow them all sky high.

Reid grouses, "This is the second time this year my eyebrows have been burned off. Very not fair."

Hotch hugs them both after they've made it back to their feet.

"When did you get here?" Prentiss asks as she brushes dirt and soot from her knees.

"Rossi picked me up on his way. I'm officially cleared for duty as of midnight," Hotch explains with a sly grin. It's 3 am.

***

Reid follows Prentiss home. He doesn't want to be alone, not so close to getting blown sky high. Not so close to having another religious fanatic try and shoot him.

Prentiss rolls them into bed and Reid doesn’t fight it. He’s a biter, which surprises her, and she insists on being on top, which doesn’t surprise him at all. Agents aren’t supposed to sleep together, but it feels like they stopped being Agents long ago.

The hurt and the bitterness and the unrelenting pain have turned them into something else, something Emily isn’t willing to investigate too closely. 

In the morning, Prentiss wakes feeling lighter than she has in months. Reid makes pancakes and she laughs as the smoke detector goes off. They never sleep together again.

[cut?]

***

With Hotch back it’s like a black cloud has lifted from over the department. Garcia drags them all out to the local bar, even Rossi who is still in the walking cast. It’s the first night that they've gone out to drink as a team since New York.

Morgan's absences is still noticeable, but it's not the aching wound it was, and they manage to relax and maybe even have a little bit of fun without him. 

Hotch buys the first round and Rossi gets the second. Archer doesn't show.

***

Hotch enforces the no profiling profilers rule. It's almost like having a responsible adult around. Archer stills feels like the odd man out. Everyone can tell, but it's up to him to make his own place here.

[Hotch making his team back into a team, while spiraling out in his own breakdown.]

No one notices that Hotch is having a harder time keeping up the facade these days. Haley serves his divorce papers at the building. 

 

***

Elle hates when Gideon gives her that paternal smile, like he already knows everything and he's amused by her gumption. Still, seeing him smile is a step in the right direction. It's better than screaming nightmares and silent glares.

[Elle on healing and Gideon’s paternalism]

***

It's a Saturday and Morgan flies out to Ohio to help with the house. Garcia is supervising and even Reid is wearing jeans.

Reid must have been doing research on the sly, because he's prepared with historical facts and figures this time.

***  
It's Hotch's first time out in the field since New York, and they're looking more like a team than they have at any time in the past six months. Hotch's suits are pressed to perfection and Reid is wearing his watch next to his skin. It's as good as things get at the BAU.

It's a mask.

[Soul Mates (Hotch spiraling further out of control)]

Hotch holds Megan's hand and bears witness to her death. Because it's his job. Because it's his moral responsibility. It's not his first time, and it won't be the last.

While he sits there, watching her life slip away he decides he's going to make sure her information gets out. Hotch owes her that much. Maybe her father never hit her, but Hotch knows the man is ultimately culpable.

[set up the parallelism with the OCK unsub - punishing fathers/saving sons]

***

The baby comes too early.

JJ texts Emily that they are headed to the hospital at 5 am and then there is silence. Emily tries to call back, but all she gets is JJ's message over and over again.

Will calls Emily from the hospital six hours later, “She’s lost a lot of blood. The baby is up in the NICU, he’s a boy, he's breathing now, but they don't know. I’ll call again when I know more.”

Prentiss passes the information along and she, Reid, Rossi and Hotch spend the day at the BAU hoping for an update.

Reid knows more statistics about premature birth than an single, childless man has any right to know. Hotch's face has gone white, and Emily can see the parade of dead children dance before his eyes. Nature can be crueler than even humanity, and Hotch knows this deep in his bones.

Rossi has a story for every one of Reid's statistics. Women and babies who survived all odds. Either he's making them up or he watches Lifetime when the team can't catch him.

There is nothing they are worse at than feeling helpless.

They get the call just before midnight. “JJ and the baby are going to make it. They’ll be in the hospital for a while, but they’ll both make it.” The relief in Will’s voice is palpable and Reid declares it reason enough to celebrate.

***

Hotch pours himself a drink when he gets home, even after the beer with the team. Being helpless is his kryptonite, and he needs to get the taste of his own weakness out of his mouth.

He has another. These days he needs a little something extra to get himself to sleep. Sometimes the alcohol even dulls the nightmares. Just as often it makes them worse.

[Hotch is crap at not being in control/alcohol intake severely increased]

***

Elle drinks straight from the bottle. Another thing that drives Gideon to distraction. She does it with both the milk and the bourbon, too. It's not that she's a slob, in fact, she's almost a neat freak. Nothing left on the floor, not even shoes, though that might be more paranoia than cleanliness.

No, she drinks from the bottle to mark her territory, to assert a little control.

[Elle driving Gideon up the wall as a sign that Gideon is healing]

***

They're still on stand down for another four days, so Prentiss allows herself to be talked into going to the fundraiser in her mother's stead. She considered asking Hotch to come with her, he'd be the one person on the team who might have a hope of either being unnoticed or defending himself, but the man has just recovered from serious trauma and even Prentiss can't bring herself to impose on him.

“Emily, dear,” says Senator Payne, and Prentiss wishes she was anywhere but here. “Come talk with me for a moment.”

Andrea Payne has been in the Senate since Prentiss was a child.

Prentiss lets the Senator drag her way from the party, and she can’t help but feel like a victim lured away from the crowd by a charismatic, but deceptive unsub.

"I ran into your mother last week, she seems well," says the Senator.

"She's being posted to Switzerland and I think she's looking forward to it," Emily offers.

"Ah, yes, I had heard that," the Senator replies uneasily. 

Something about the Senator's body language tell Prentiss she's not going to like where this is going.

The Senator says in low tones, "With the control of the Congress split and with the rumors that someone on the committee has it out for her, she may be sitting out until at least the elections. If whatever they have is damaging it may be longer."

Prentiss sighs. Not only does she have to live through the rest of this evening, but now she'll have to call her mother when she gets home. 

***

For Christmas, Emily endows the Diana Reid scholarship for profoundly gifted students at the Davidson Academy. She wonders what Reid’s life would have been like if there had been a place like that for him when he was little. Maybe he wouldn’t be a profiler. She tries not to dwell on the maybes. They'd been in Reno on a case that had taken them out to the school right before New York. She remembers his face when they'd walked through the building and when the curriculum had been explained. Even though she knows no one can make up for someone else's lousy childhood, it doesn't stop her from trying. 

She can't get the image of him kneeling down beside a girl, maybe ten year old, and having a conversation about Plank's constant. How his face lit up with the pure joy of knowledge and sharing it with someone else who valued it as much as he. She thinks if he can ever get over being abandoned by every adult who was supposed to care for or about him from his father to Gideon, he'd make a good father himself. 

Reid holds Henry like he's the most precious thing in the entire universe. Prentiss doesn't hold him at all.

***

Garcia comes out with Morgan to see the house. Morgan hugs Reid awkwardly.

Reid can say Morgan's name these days without sounding sad and tired. 

 

In the attic, they find three chests filled with old pictures and papers and things. 

[Reid family history/ fathers and sons and the things that break them]

***  
[Hotch and Prentiss interrogating the faux!gypsies. Hotch thinking about how easy it is to put on the abuser/sadist, and how hard it is to take it off. Hotch loses control in interrogation.]

The scene in interrogation is getting tense and fast. Prentiss has seen Hotch yell before, seen him pound on the table, get in a suspect's face, but he's never seen him like this before.

Hotch goes home and gets drunk.

[JJ comes back.]

***  
The house only needs a few finishing touches before it is ready to rent out. Even Hotch comes out to see.

Morgan and Garcia have arranged a picnic lunch, to be eaten on the newly renovated hardwood floors of the dining.

[Garcia tells Reid about his dad.]  
***

[Omnivore (Hotch glitching/Reaper arc starts/general misery)]

Hotch buckles down the rage and the hate behind his perfect FBI Agent mask.

They find Archer face up, bullet between the eyes, badge missing. Foyet is the Reaper. Hotch kicks himself. He should have known. The seven stab wounds had made a compelling case for his innocence, though, and Hotch had been too distracted to look any further.

***

Elle and Gideon touch down in Amarillo in the middle of a thunderstorm. It's a good thing neither of them are afraid of flying, because the whole trip has been rough.

It's not an official trip, just a quick hop to see if the dead boy in Amarillo is their unsub's work, so they can tell Nate to contact the BAU.

[Elle and Gideon start really working the case, figure out how not to be FBI and still be effective]

***

The newspapers have already dubbed him the Oak Tree Killer by the time the BAU is called in. Five little boys are dead, suffocated then hung from oak trees in public parks. The unsub seems to be heading east and Reid is beginning to think he flips a coin at every intersection to determine which direction to go in next. There’s no discernible pattern: yet.

Weatherford, Texas is the sight of the latest abduction and killing. Jacob Evans has been dead twelve hours when the BAU lands. 

The sky is gray and foreboding. A thunderstorm is about to roll in, and all Hotch can think about is dead boys and pathetic fallacy.

Hotch knows five minutes into the interview with Jacob's parents that they're lying about something. It doesn't ping what until Will Miller sends his daughter, Hannah out of the room. It's a combination of the look she gives him and the tone of his voice, but Hotch knows down to his bones that Will has been hitting his son and probably his daughter too. 

For a second, he lets himself wish Gideon was here to take this burden from him. For a longer moment, he lets himself wish he could pull out his sidearm and put a bullet between the abusive son-of-a-bitch's eyes. It passes.

He has Garcia pull any CPS records for all the murdered boys and sends Prentiss to reinterview the coroners. Garcia finds records for Eric Miller, Jayden Egner and Dante Charles with CPS. All of which were determined to be false reports. Prentiss' coroners confirm Hotch's hunch. All five boys had bruising consistent with abuse that were too old to have been caused by the unsub.

Hotch's stomach turns, and he resolutely does not think about those bruises on his own childish skin.

***

"A white van, matching the description given by Anna Charles was seen just after James Mitchell disappeared in Allen, Texas. The locals think it's our guy," says JJ.

[Assign tasks, investigate unsub]

 

Prentiss’ phone rings and she excuses herself to take the call as the rest of the team packs up.

"Emily, dear, how are you?" asks her mother.

She doesn't answer: tired, hungry and frustrated. She never tells her mother things like that. "Fine. We're out on a case though, so I don't really have time to talk."

Prentiss can hear her mother wondering where Emily has left her manners, she doesn't even have to sigh.

"Fine. I need you to return to DC. You're about to be subpoenaed."

"What?"

"Henry Olsworth has something against me. Possibly the fact that it was I who let his first wife know he was consorting with his legislative aide. Anyway, he's about to call you to testify at my confirmation hearing," Ambassador Prentiss says.

"Mother, right now I am on the trail of a man who has already killed five little boys. This can wait." Prentiss hangs up.

***

[False suspect, Hotch losing it in interrogation]  
They bring in Martin Hill. He fits what they have of a profile: White male in his late thirties, MA in social work, feel under appreciated and ineffectual.

Prentiss ducks as the shoe still in it's evidence bag flies past her head.

Hotch walks out of interrogation, letting his long legs carry him far away from anywhere people will ask questions. He needs some room to breath.

***

Gideon hunkers down against the side wall of the house. The brick is rough against his cheek.

Irving Richter, recently divorced, lost custody of his son due to fraudulent abuse charges.

[Gideon thinks he's found the guy, another wrong suspect]

***

James Mitchell is eight years old with dark hair, blue eyes and dimples. He has been missing for four hours when the BAU arrives on the scene. Everyone in Allen, Texas is looking for the boy. The FBI, the police, his parents. It doesn’t do any good. The medical examiner cuts him down from an oak tree twenty three hours after he disappears.

Emily Prentiss is the queen of compartmentalizing, of detachment, but this time something is off. The tiny corpse looks like her James for a minute and her hand lurches out to stop them from zipping up the body bag.

Reid puts his hand on her shoulder and she reboots, coming back to here and now.

[Prentiss wondering if any of them are okay enough to be in the field - answer: NO.]

***

Hotch gathers the team in the conference room the Allen police have lent them.

"We know he's been moving east and that in the last three abduction he's used a white van," says Hotch.

"He has a specific type but no signs of sexual predation on any of the victims," adds Reid.

"All five boys were abused. Evidence seems to indicate that the father was the abuser in all five cases," Prentiss says.

"I still haven't figured out what the symbols carved on the trees mean," Reid says. He hates it when he can't crack a code. He's smarter than the unsub. He has to be. "The symbols obviously mean something to him, but I've never seen anything like them."

***

Hotch hates child cases, especially ones involving abuse. Gideon isn’t here to cover for him now. Gideon is fucking gone, too.

He also hates when the unsubs are clever, the ones who want to play a game. The ones who almost seem more interested in taunting police than they are in their victims.

He hates politics too. Which is why he’s surprised when his phone rings and Ambassador Prentiss is on the other side. “Ambassador,” he says, suppressing the urge to sigh.

“Agent Hotchner.” Her voice is tinny over the line. “How good to speak with you."

"And you as well, Ambassador."

"I need you to send Emily home," says Ambassador Prentiss, cutting to the point.

"Ma'am, we're in the middle of an investigation," Hotch says with all the patience he has left in his body.

"She's about to be subpoenaed by Congress."

Hotch can only imagine the chaos and political infighting that's about to descend on his team. He calls Strauss, booting this one up the chain of command.

***

“It’s not that I don’t like the Ambassador,” says Hotch. “We just don’t see eye to eye on everything.” Or possibly on anything, starting with tax reform and ending with her daughter.

"It's politics," Emily says. "It's always politics with my mother."

Hotch sighs. "I wish I could say that wasn't true."

Aaron Hotchner gets assigned embassy duty his first time out with the FBI. Ambassador Prentiss is back in the States and he's the junior most agent on the protective detail. Its parties and meetings and more parties masked as fundraisers.

He's sure she actually does something but back in the States there isn't much for her beyond shaking hands. Hotch is junior, he gets the tasks nobody else wants. In this case: Emily. She's eighteen and almost done with her first year of college when Hotch first meets her.

She's not speaking to her mother; they're both stubborn and proud. Neither one is going to back down first. Hotch spends half his time playing messenger between them in the too big house.

After Caitlin, and that debacle, there is Jeffery Howard, Senator Howard's eldest boy. Hotch has met him once or twice, a clean cut boy going to Yale. He's utterly charming; Ambassador Prentiss thinks he walks on clouds. He's nice enough that Emily keeps dating him.

He's surprised when she sneaks in past two in the morning. He lets her in; he's not going to get in the middle of teenage rebellion. “Don't tell my mother,” she says and when she looks up he can see the beginnings of a black eye.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Elbow, eye. I can't believe I'm that clumsy,” she says with a self deprecating smile.

Hotch doesn't believe it, but he doesn't press the issue and Emily is gone up the stairs before he gets the alarm reset.

Two weeks later, Hotch is the one on duty when Emily calls. They're not supposed to play taxi service but it's late and she sounds terrified. When he gets to the address she provided, he approaches the door and it opens before he can knock.

She exits, pulling the door silently behind her and collapses on him. Hotch is surprised, but manages to catch her before she falls. It's dark and he can't tell how hurt she is or if there is still a threat. He gets her in the car, quickly, and he can tell she's bleeding in the dome light.

“We’re going to the hospital.” He’s using his best command voice, the voice that usually makes even the marines who play honor guard stand up and obey.

“No,” says the bleeding and clearly frightened girl.

Hotch turns the key in the ignition and starts driving them there anyway.

“You can’t take me to the hospital. If you do there’ll be a record,” she says quite clearly. “If there’s a record, my mom will know.”

“What happened in there?” he asks. If he distracts her enough, she won’t notice where they’re going until it's too late. 

“What do you think happened? Honestly!” says Emily crossing her arms over her chest.

Hotch waits out her silence.

“I went to break up with him. He hit me last week, that day you snuck me back in the house. He said he’d never do it again. I didn’t believe him. Apparently, I was right,” she says, staring out the passenger side window. “You still can’t take me to the hospital. His dad will freak out. My mom will freak out. They'll just have to cover it up. It won’t be good for anyone.”

He takes her to the hospital anyway. There’s no way for her prove she isn’t concussed or bleeding internally and perhaps the doctors will be better with her than he is.

He isn’t expecting the interrogation he gets from the doctors when she refuses to explain her injuries. He tells them what little he knows and gets sent to the waiting room for his troubles.

They let him take Emily home once they've cleared her. She doesn't speak the entire way, and he doesn't ask her how she talked them out of calling social services.

Hotch should have expected it, but the incident and his suggestion to the Ambassador that a report really should be made, gets him rotated off the security force. It's okay, playing bodyguard to a trumped up party planner isn’t what he wants to do with the rest of his life, but he wonders how Emily is doing sometimes.

When Prentiss shows up with her transfer order, Hotch doesn't recognize her. He wonders later if her mother is trying to protect her or reward her, but if he knows Emily at all neither will take.

***

Another boy goes missing. This time: Texarkana. Theodore Cassidy. 

They have a witness this time, but the description the man gives in vague: brown hair, weathered skin.

Their unsub is devolving, taking victims faster and with less care.

***

Prentiss and Reid can sleep anywhere, light blazing, even with the television on full blast. Reid probably preferred to fall asleep with the lights on and Prentiss just didn't want to fall asleep alone. Either way, they sleep piled like puppies or small children amidst the casefiles, so much more innocent looking in sleep. Hotch doesn't wake them.

Reid doesn't have nightmares often when they sleep like this, but sometimes he wakes, terrified. Hotch isn't sure Prentiss is even conscious when she does it but she pulls him to her chest like a giant teddy bear and Spencer calms.  
[rewrite]

***

Teddy Cassiday's body is found hanging in a mesquite tree in a suburban neighborhood. The unsub has broken his pattern, and Reid is sure this is the piece of the puzzle that will finally let them break this case.

[crime scene exposition]

***

Strauss actually comes through for him this time, convincing some Congressional subcommittee to let him keep Prentiss for another week. They're sending lawyers though.

[Strauss pulls strings, worries]

***

Hotch interrogates David Thayer's father. "You hit him."

"No."

"Yes, you did. You hit him and he cried or maybe he just learned to take it and you hit him again and again because it made you feel like a man."

[Hotch takes victim’s father APART]

***

Prentiss ends up having to make a statement for the investigator, but avoids testifying in front of Congress, so that's something.

 

Her mother had remarried. It's what you do in the world of politics. There's always a whiff of scandal around powerful women, unmarried ones more so. Arthur Walbash is a good enough man, Emily supposes.

[mothers and daughter and politics. Tie it back to douche-y Senator’s son]

***

Reid has the seven symbols they know about lined up on the board. Prentiss doesn't see a pattern. No one does.

"There has to be something here," Reid says, plopping down next to her, eyes still on the board. "Maybe wild horse brands?"

Prentiss types it into google and finds a site for Reid.

They look at the marks and back at the symbols on the board.

"Not that either," Prentiss says with a sigh.

"It has to mean something!" Reid says. He's been staring at the marks for hours now and Prentiss can tell he's getting frustrated.

"Maybe it only has meaning for him," Prentiss suggests.

"Any meaning is important. If it has meaning to him, I should be able to figure out that meaning!" Reid paces.

***

[stuff happens here that leads them accidentally to the unsub]

***

Phillip Parker Bates is caught outside Norman with David Thayer's dead body in the back of his van. They don't even get to interview him. He runs, and three separate officers put bullets in his back. Reid never does figure out the code.

[unsub wrap up]

***

Elle recedes into the shadows. She thinks Hotch might have caught a glimpse of her, just enough so he could convince himself his mind was playing tricks, nothing more. It doesn't matter. Her unsub is dead and her case is closed. She can fly home to Mrs. Miller and tell her vengeance has been served.

Gideon is out of breath when she reaches him.

"What've you been up to?" Elle asks with a grin. Gideon just glares at her.

"Fine, fine, don't tell me." Elle hopes Gideon hasn't been shadowing the team too closely, though she knows he couldn't resist checking up on them. He'd been fine in the field, holding his own and that's all that's important to her. Anything else is Gideon's choice.

***

Hotch swears he ssees Elle in the alley during the shoot out, but he knows it's just a trick of his mind telling him he's working too hard and that he could do with some sleep.

[Hotch feeling guilty about Elle]

***

[Elle and Gideon go back home, don't ever talk to BAU. Gideon feels even guiltier, but also proud. Elle finds a little bit of peace]

***

Hotch sees him in the mirror and pours the drink anyway. He turns slowly, and takes a gulp, letting the alcohol burn down his throat.

"You should have taken the deal," the Reaper says.

"No," Hotch replies, right before the bullet hits his chest.

***

Morgan walks back into the BAU on a somber, solemn day in September. "I didn't mean to come back like this."

Garcia hugs him and doesn't let go. Prentiss joins her, as if they are both holding on for dear life. Reid stands awkwardly to the side until Prentiss holds out her hand and Garcia gathers him into the hug.


End file.
